President Johnson and Lady Bird enjoying the wildflowers on their ranch
Learning about preparing food in the "olden days"
The Sauer-Beckmann Farmstead - neighbors of the Johnsons
Hill Country view
Derek on the University of Texas campus
University of Texas Bell Tower
View of Capitol from UT campus
Bats, bats, bats - notice the trails into the distance (just above the guy's camera)
Thursday June 5
We spent the night in Fredericksburg, about an hour west of Austin, so that we could visit the Lyndon Johnson State Park in Stonewall and see more of the "Hill Country" in the day time.
We had been to the LBJ park the night before - after closing and, of course, it was empty. When we returned the next morning we were surprised to see that the visitor center parking lot was pretty packed. There were even cars from out of state, which surprised us since during our time in Texas trip we rarely saw any out of state license plates.
The LBJ state park is across the Perdenales River from the LBJ ranch. The visitor center at the park is where bus tours of the LBJ ranch depart from. It's a beautiful area with rolling hills of wildflowers and trees. The park includes a couple of old homesteads built by German immigrant families who were neighbors of the Johnsons.
The Sauer-Beckmann Farmstead is maintained as a living history farm with people acting out the roles of the original homesteaders. We learned from one very nice lady, acting as the mother, about how food was prepared. She maintains the garden, cans many of the fruits and vegetables, and cooks one meal a day for the staff using only the tools and techniques that would have been used at the time. We all agreed that we're lucky to be living in the present day - it looked hard to live before tv, refrigerators, and grocery stores.
The visitor center had lots of nice exhibits and a good movie about LBJ. Before visiting the area and learning about LBJ, I always thought of him as a slippery politician type and would not have put it past him to have been involved in the JFK assassination. After learning more about the man and his accomplishments, I think LBJ was a good guy. He did several hard manual labor type jobs before earning his degree and seemed to always have a soft spot for the hard working people of America. I'm not a "big government" New Deal kind of guy, but I thought his heart was in the right place. He passed more education and race relation legislation than any other president. He was deeply conflicted about America's involvement in Vietnam and distraught at the number of young kids losing their lives. Also, for his funeral, he told Lady Bird that he knew all the hi-faluten people would be there, but that he also wanted "the ladies with their slips showing and the guys with grease under their nails" to come as well. So, instead of being suspicious of his involvement in the JFK assassination, I think Johnson was heroic and graceful in how he guided America after the tragedy.
After the LBJ park we headed east towards Austin. We stopped in Blanco for lunch. We had heard about the Blanco Bowling Club Cafe in RoadFood.com and thought we would give it a try. Blanco is a typical small town without much going on. When we saw the restaurant from the outside, Helen questioned whether we should go in. That's the comfort that RoadFood.com gives - we probably wouldn't try a number of these places based on look, but boy were we glad we did.
We got there about 2, so it was a little late for lunch and the place was empty except for someone picking up a takeout order. Adam staked out the counter in the front for us. The guy that waited on us was super friendly. He told us what the house specialties were. Derek was excited that hamburgers were one of the specialties. I ordered the country fried steak based on RoadFood.com recommendation. While we waited on our food, the waiter showed us around. I asked him why it was called a "bowling club". He proceeded to take me through an adjoining room where there was a bar and a number of tables and a big curtain like room divider. Behind the room divider were several bowling lanes. The waiter told us that on Thursday through Sunday people came in to bowl. It was 9 pin bowling without automatic pinsetting. It was a really cool place and the food was great as well.
A group of "old-timer regulars" came in for afternoon coffee and sat down at the table behind us. The waiter gave them free cake with the coffee and we enjoyed listening to them banter. One of the guys was having fun with Adam. He told Adam that he recognized him from school, but that Adam probably didn't recognize him because he sat behind Adam.
We mentioned to the waiter that we had heard that they had good cinnamon rolls and when we went to pay at the register, the waiter handed us a bag full of these huge cinnamon rolls and donuts - for free. The total bill was $23. It was a great experience and we had not even tasted the cinnamon rolls and donuts, yet. They were melt in your mouth good and we were sad when we finished them off.
After lunch, we drove to the Blanco State Park and checked it out before leaving town on a stretch of road called "the Devil's Backbone" for it's treacherous curves overlooking the Hill Country canyons. We were a little apprehensive, but it didn't turn out to be bad at all. It was a pretty drive, but nothing treacherous.
When we got into Austin we drove to the University of Texas campus. We saw the infamous bell tower and walked around the pretty campus. Afterwards, we drove to see the Congress Avenue bridge bats make their nightly exodus. We arrived a little before "bat time", so we walked along the river. It's a beautiful area with paths that connect open spaces all along the river for miles. There were lots of people and dogs out running, walking, and playing. It's a very active city.
As night approached we returned to the bridge to find many more people eagerly awaiting the bat flight. We knew we were in trouble when we saw a number of people with umbrellas. At about 8:15, the first few bats emerged and over the next 15 minutes or so, a million plus bats made their way into the evening sky. There were trails of bats for as far as the eye could see in many directions. We all got hit by some bat droppings, but the droppings were really small because we could only feel the drops and couldn't see them.
After the bats, we drove to the hip South Congress Avenue area, aka SoCo. The area does a promotion, called First Thursday, on the first Thursday of every month where the shops stay open late and run all kinds of specials. It just happened to be a First Thursday the night we were there. The place was hopping. It was kind of like the Buckhead area in Atlanta - on steroids. We thought about stopping to eat, but the vibe was more young and party-like rather than family friendly.
By then it was getting late and we needed to make a decision on a hotel. We wanted to see the famous 6th street area at night for the live music, so we headed there. We finally settled on the Marriot Residence Inn. It was pricier than I would have liked, but the manager dropped the rate about $50 when I balked at the original rate.
It was about 11 pm, but everyone was up for walking to 6th street. There were lots of clubs, music, and college students. Derek balked at a couple of places where I thought we could get something to eat because they didn't look kid friendly. We finally settled on a cramped pizza place where we had some tasty slices and listened to some classic tunes.
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